Compare it side by side to your process for your key word newsletter--how do they compare? Next, I want you to defend, with support, your choice of medium (this is a "real" defense so I need to be persuaded here =). Last, you need to quickly connect your theory of composing to all of this.Make sure your reflection is fluid--this means even though you are discussing several things--find connections.
Due by Friday, March 4, 2011 BY 6:00 pm.
The newsletter and my remediation project were both very effective in helping me understand literacy of the 21st century a lot better. The newsletter to me was a nice way to clearly explain my word and to read and write about it. I got a really good idea of what it was, and I got to create a newsletter which I love to do because I was on the high school newspaper staff for four years (nobody laugh!) I got to work in the digital studio with InDesign placing photos on the pages, quotes, and the text itself.
ReplyDeleteThe remediation project was a lot more fun though, if I must say so myself. I found it very vital to my word and I got to present the word without actually writing it. I believe that my project provides a clear accusation of my word. I believe that anyone who accessed my website would be able to figure out what I was trying to get my audience to understand. I created a website with a main page, and three other pages that you can click on and go to. My absolute favorite part of the remediation project, is the fact that aside from the remediation part, I got to actually use my word. What I mean by this, is I got to use and explore the different kinds of technology online and the different ways of producing a webpage. I feel like I learned more from the remediation part of the project because I was actually ‘doing’ my word while I was doing the project. I got to use to the digital studio, mess with images and sound, and I believe that even small things like that, alone can bring you to become more technologically advanced. When we were first assigned the project, I immediately had so many ideas on what I wanted to do my project on. So many in fact, I could have probably done 3 different types of remediation projects.
I want to defend my medium big time. I believe that my remediation project has everything to do with literacy of the 21st century. If we did not have internet, my remediation project for literacy would have been limited. I had the ability to explore my word in much more depth than I did with the newsletter project. It also forced me to want to do more with my project. I remember sending an email to you (Kara) about how I was doing with my remediation project. What was her response you might wonder? “Grace, the idea of literacy of the 21st century is most definitely there.” So I believe that should be proven that I tried my hardest to present my word through my work.
My theory of composing connects to all of this. I believe that when we compose, we learn from each other and go off of the basis of other things that have already been created. I tried my very hardest to compose a remediation project through my idea of composing. I believe that you can compose without words. I think that can be one of the most fun, yet challenging parts of composing.
My composing process simply is done over a period of time. For both my newsletter and remediation project, a commonality exists: I would think about the assignment over time, reflect on it, and then come up with approaches to making it. My keyword was voice.
ReplyDeleteWhen I began doing my newsletter, it was more a process of first defining the keyword in my terms, and then doing research. It took deep thought and reflection with “voice” before I started writing. Once I had my personal thoughts together, I incorporated my research to develop a piece that has scholarly insight as well as my own “voice.” The remediation process took a bit of time to decide what different medium I wanted to work in and how I was going to do it. I wanted to do something that got the meaning across and actually used my voice. My first thought was maybe just to do a voice recording. I rejected that idea, I wanted visuals too. I chose to use a video as my medium. This video incorporates several things that I wanted to get across. First strategy- the visual. I had myself in my room (actually my guy friends room) sitting on the bed thinking, writing the word voice on a piece of paper and seeming to reflect on it, trying to define what it was to me. Then I transition over to the mirror with the different thoughts about the word posted on the mirror. This is to represent my thoughts getting collected developing the basic definition of voice, “Soul, emotion, and character.” After, I go over to my computer and actually start writing, incorporating the research I have done. Second strategy- the voiceover. The voiceover was designed to 1st - get the definition fully across, with use of scholars and material from my first newsletter, 2nd it was to serve as my actual “voice”—this is how our text should pop out as if you actually hear that writer’s “voice.” I think working in the video medium was the best choice to remediate my newsletter. I got to stress these factors I previously stated, to make my fully developed project. I needed to apply my actual keyword and use it in the medium. If I had merely done a Prezi or piece of art, it would have been useless because it didn’t actually utilize and exemplify my particular keyword.
Over the course of these projects, I have learned much about my composing process. When I did my newsletter, I went along how I always do, not thinking about my composing process. For my remediation project, I reflected and wanted to point out in my video how my composing process works. My video exemplifies my composing process and that is first- stop and think to myself what it is to me, second-collect my thoughts and start research, third- is connecting my thoughts and research all together. In a way, my remediation video shows how my composing process works. This is actually how I approached doing my newsletter.
I’m really happy with my remediation project. I chose to do a collage, and as I created it there were many twists and turns along the way that just kind of happened and were not intended originally. I think that’s what makes something original is taking different paths along the way just to see all the possibilities. My keyword is “audience” (from a composition standpoint). Before I even began our newsletter, the first thing that popped into my head about my term was a huge crowd at an event, typically with a stage, such as a concert, football game, fashion show, etc. As I went on in my newsletter, I realized that audience can be so much simpler than that. An audience could be the high school hallway, for example. In my newsletter, I broke the term down to the smallest possible elements; audience can range from a single viewer, to a million viewers. I played off of that idea for my remediation. Right away, I thought I should create some kind of image with a stage and stadium seats and some kind of performance on the stage. Then as Kara was explaining to us that we could even create our remediation in a non-digital remediation, it all fell into place. I’m really new at all these new digital programs and I love being creative with my hands. I like to create something original with a lot of stuff going on in it. That’s why a collage seemed perfect. At first I thought to myself, a collage of a fashion show would be perfect; Vogue magazine has nothing but models and clothes in it for the most part. Then, however, I thought it would be more effective with people’s faces that we knew. Taylor Swift is the biggest star I could find a huge picture for. I was just going to use the one picture, but I decided to make a little Taylor Swift collage, because it was easy to represent that the audience was watching her because her pictures came with her name written really big and different little quotes she said. My foundation for this idea was to have one singer/band on stage, and a bunch of celebrity’s in the audience watching. Now since in magazines, everyone is facing the same way, it would be difficult to create this in one view. That’s why I created it in a double view. Taylor Swift is the singer, with the quotes and her name on the left side, and then on the right side, I used a bunch of celebrity’s faces to depict a huge audience. I also sized them off, like the biggest pictures at the bottom to the smallest pictures to the top. This way, it almost looks like the stadium seating. I also ended up outlining each celebrity, by colors by row. I think this helped in making it look like seats. Last, I created a border or divider going down the middle in a random line with random bends and turns to separate the entertainer, Taylor, from the audience, the rest of the celebrity’s. I collaged together a ton of sequins to create the border. Overall, I’m really happy with it. I like the double view aspect. I even painted the bottom border gold to maybe represent a stage. I know the stage and the fact that they are stadium seats details like that aren’t very obvious, but I think to a degree, to be creative you’ve got to have some aspect of being abstract and making the viewers question and intrigued.
ReplyDeleteI think using a collage as my remediation works. Audience is one of those very concrete words that can easily be represented through a physical depiction, rather than digital. I think an audience is made up of different people, being depicted them together allows us to see them as one as a whole. I also think it helped with the views. A collage has a little more leeway for being abstract, since it is mostly using pictures that already exist and putting them together.
ReplyDeleteMy theory of composing is going with the idea that comes to mind immediately and playing off that. Whenever a description or example pops into my head about a subject we are discussing, I use that because I know that that will help in my understanding, because I already know it. I like representing things through examples and explaining how it is relevant to the situation. I a lot of times will use that first idea as an introduction to something to catch the reader’s attention. Overall, I just like to use my first instincts, and start with my original idea and see what comes up and progresses from there.
My remediation process was very different from my newsletter process. There was a lot to think about because my keyword, reflection, is so abstract. I didn’t really know how to remediate it in digital form, without just displaying text and pictures. So I began to think of “out-of-the-box” ways to remediate reflection. I had two ideas; one was to make a puzzle and put the pieces together like reflection sort of pulls together a piece of writing. Although it could have been a great project, it was kind of a stretch and difficult to involve all of the aspects of reflection in it. So I went with my second idea which was to create a board game. I felt that this was the best way to explain the process of reflection in a fun and innovative way.
ReplyDeleteThe hardest part was finding a way to win the game. Was it just going to be a luck game, like Candy Land? Or was it going to be strategic, like Risk or Monopoly? I researched many types of board games online. I read the directions and got ideas for what I could put on the spaces and what kinds of activities and challenges could be done to win the game. I decided a luck game would be too simple for this complex subject, so I combined luck and strategy. I involved challenges in my game that were fun, but also explained the main concepts of reflection. I mainly used Lennie Irvin’s idea about rhetorical reflection. It seemed to work the best with the board game.
The main reason I chose to make a board game was because reflection is such a difficult thing to show to people. It’s something that needs to be put into action. And my board game requires a lot of action and thought. I’ll admit, it’s not exactly the type of game you would play with your friends on a friday night with a couple of beers, but it’s not supposed to be that way. It’s for an audience of scholars who know about this sort of thing. They study the ins and outs of reflection so they understand the rules more clearly than a college freshman would. That was probably the biggest differentiation between the two projects. And in some ways it helped, because I didn’t really have to explain the rules in a hip and easy-to-understand way.
The audience may have been the easiest part, but the entire composing process was very difficult and tedious. I literally thought about the project for a week before I could even start it. (I guess reflection is the right word for me!) I couldn’t start making a board game without having the rules figured out first. Once I planned out the rules and visualized the design of the board, I was able to start. My newsletter process was pretty similar. When I began working on it, I first had to gather all of my ideas and research along with playing with different designs before I could actually start putting it all together. It’s funny because when I write a normal paper, not requiring pictures or layout and design, I usually empty out my brain onto my computer, and then sift it out later. But in this class, I am noticing more and more how much of a planner I am in my composing process. It’s different when the composition involves some sort of layout. I think its great that I am learning this about myself so that in the future when I have to create these types of projects for publication, I have a steady process that I can follow.
My process for my keyword newsletter was similar to my digital project in the fact that when the assignment was addressed, I had to think about an idea of what I wanted my project to look like. My first project was harder, I feel, because I had to do a lot of research to figure out what the word ideology even meant! With my newsletter being the focus of professor’s ideologies effect on students, I decided I wanted to see what FSU students had to say about the matter and if they personally had any experience with this, and keep the same theme in my digital project. But in all other aspects, I believe, the process was very different between the two mediums.
ReplyDeleteWhen I realized I would have to create my newsletter in a digital form, I didn’t have to look much further than my good ‘ol MacBook. I knew there were other digital options available in the digital studio, but I began to play around with imovie on my Mac, and didn’t look back. I had done some mini projects before, but nothing real serious for a class project. I decided I would just plunge right in and go with it. Imovie, hands down, was the best decision to go with for this project. I found out I could use a video downloader website called keepvid.com where I could bring a youtube video right into my project, where I could then a cut, edit, and drag it into my project. How cool is that? Of course, I did have to remember to cite the video. Also, since I wanted to get student’s opinions, I filmed them with my digital camera. You might think that would be hard to get the film from the camera to imovie. Think again, it’s not. All I did was use the cord I use to import my digital photos and it showed up right in my imovie project. From there, I cut and pasted what I wanted to show in my own video. Once I loaded all my footage into imovie, that’s where all the fun began. I had to first choose a theme. And yes, imovie even has themes to make it that much easier and fun. There was a theme called “news” that I used to make it look like a news story. Since I am still fairly new to imovie, I wasn’t exactly sure what to do, so, yet again, I went to youtube for some help. It amazes me how educational youtube can actually be. I got moving on cutting the clips of people I interviewed, along with the images from campus. I even picked a song right out of my itunes library and was able to manipulate the audio to overlap the images, so there was background music. And I also went on-line and got some images that went along well with what the student was saying in some cases. Again, so simple. I added transitions and titles, which imovie provides, and gave it the finishing touches, such as making everything transition smoothly, syncing the lips of the student’s to the audio, and cutting it to make it more concise. If anyone tries to tell me they aren’t “technologically savy” enough to do a movie, I’d really like them to please take me as an example. I thought the same way, but really, once you try, it is actually a lot of fun and quite simple, and you feel very accomplished once the project is complete.
My theory of composing most definitely ties into this remediation project by the fact that you never know until you try. Just like making a movie, when you write, some people think, oh, I could never write a book or research paper. Wow, that seems so hard. Well, in all reality, if you just sit down and try it, it’s really not. I feel that when you compose any type of medium, you can’t let obstacles, such as thinking it’s too hard, get in the way.
I personally loved this remediation project. I do not say this in hopes of getting brownie points or anything, but I always appreciate the chance to work in mediums other than the usual print or digital assignments. Our newsletters were obviously print, so in order for me to produce a full remediation, I first had to come up with a new medium. Though I considered a digital presentation or video/PowerPoint, I found these mediums too unoriginal. Although, saying that the digital mediums are “unoriginal” is not meant to suggest they are irrelevant, it just surprises me how ordinary online or digital assignments have become in our work as college students. It then occurred to me that I was going about this process all wrong. In order to find which medium would be most fitting, I had to first analyze my newsletter on memory and decide which of its positive aspects and content I was going to carry over to my remediated piece. I thought the color scheme was unique and also related to how my newsletter suggested that color was a vital part of the memory process; so that had to be included. Also, one point of my newsletter that was heavily supported by my research was about how memories get intertwined when delivering a speech or composing. I also knew that I wanted to do a hands-on activity if at all possible. After compiling all of these aspects and some more brainstorming, I decided that the medium of fabric, a weaving more specifically, would be the best for my remediation.
ReplyDeleteLike the newsletter, I had to find sources, a layout, colors, and the actual material for this project. However, my sources for this part differed from those of my newsletter because this time, my sources were more centered on the medium itself, rather than the content. I used YouTube video tutorial on how to make a simple weaving pattern, as well as some more studies on color mixing. As for the layout, I chose a square pattern and decided to mount this project on a square base, because there was so much structure in my newsletter, as far as formatting was concerned. I was very focused on keeping the colors as similar as possible, for they are the main aspect of my remediation. Unfortunately, when dealing with fabric and ribbon, there are only so many options in comparison to the font and palate color tool of Microsoft Word. As for the actual material, I recognized that my newsletter was quite inundated with copy and information. Though this is obviously not a bad aspect as far as newsletters are concerned, I decided that carrying over the wordiness from print to fabric would not be well translated. Therefore, I simply wrote my key term on top of the fabric, in an attempt to draw attention to the word and its meaning within the contexts of the fabric.
This entire process completely mirrored my theory of composing. I first reflected on an overall idea of what I wanted in my project, making content and message most important. Then I chose a medium that would relate to my original newsletter and would still be received by my intended audience. I also edited and amended certain aspects of the project before finalizing details and ultimately producing, in my opinion, a completed remediation.
When writing my genre newsletter I wanted to find a light hearted way to capture readers. In order develop the idea of genre in layman terms for college freshmen I introduced genre as clothes. When you get ready to go somewhere you usually pick clothes appropriate for the events. In order to gain the readers' attention I also used a quiz and a “Dear Abby” column. In addition to these informal ways of depicting genre, I also used scholarly definitions as well. When considering my remediation of the newsletter I initially wanted to make a collage incorporating Burke's definition of genre as a starting point and my definition of genre as clothes.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to create a collage of a girl in the middle of a party wearing something inappropriate for the event, such as her pajamas or something equally out of place. After considering this I decided that this would depict the the fact that she was out of place, but it would not explain anything further than that. So in order to incorporate the idea of genre as clothes and Burke's idea of genre as a starting point I decided on using a comic strip. A comic strip allowed me to utilize the same photo montage idea, while developing Burke's theory of genre through dialogue and thought bubbles. The comic strip depicts “Frazzled Francesca”, a young girl who is struggling with her clothes or “genres”. She meets a boy in a club and his first impression of her (the starting point) was to wonder what she was wearing. Although he acknowledges that she is an attractive woman that he would like to see again, he does not understand the way she is dressing herself. He continues to see her, but nevertheless his opinion of her is affected by the way she presents herself. The boy she meets is embarrassed to be associated with someone that is so out of the loop. For example when she is cheering for him at his tennis match he hopes that no one sees her. This is similar to when people are ashamed of reading trashy romantic novels. The content of those novels are often better fit for a pornographic magazine than a fictional novel, just as Francesca's pajamas are better suited for her bedroom than the tennis court.
So when you get dressed each day it is important to consider what you are dressing yourself for, just as it is crucial to think about what you are writing as you compose. Just consider what you are saying and who you are saying it to. This connects to my theory of composition because I have realized that even if you compose something amazing, if it is not genre appropriate then the talent in your writing will be overlooked.
Creating my remediation was a lot more fun than my newsletter because it was a lot more hands on and allowed me to have total freedom for creativity. In order to write my news letter there was a lot of tedious reading and researching involved. Also, I find it more pleasant to work with a canvas and paintbrush versus staring at a computer screen, but that is just my preference. Rather than researching rhetorical configuration I was able to create a visual for an audience to relate to and grasp the meaning of Logos, Ethos, and Pathos more simply. After a considerable amount of research I discovered that in any persuasive piece Logos tends to be the voice of reason that persuades the audience, but that Pathos can greatly influence an audience’s opinion. Thus, pathos is the focal point of my remediation. Since Ethos and Logos tend to run hand in hand I laced them together around Pathos to symbolize their unity. In order to connect these different components of rhetorical configuration visually, I used the imagery of nature. Each concept is linked to the other both in color scheme and symbolism.
ReplyDeleteThe reason I chose my medium is because I felt that it was different from what is typically done so it would have a greater impact on my audience. Another reason I chose this medium is because I knew it would be fun for me which meant that I would have a finished product that I would be happy with.
Creating my newsletter was a much longer and difficult process. Although I succeeded in visual appeal and content, I still hadn't completely grasped the essence of discourse community. I feel like the audience for the newsletter was the freshman but the audience for the cake was me. I didn't worry so much with the cake about pleasing others. I simply wanted to please myself with something that I believe truly conveyed my key term.
ReplyDeleteI knew going into this that I didn't want to do something that everyone else was doing. I would have liked to work with a digital media, but I wanted to be a little more outside the box. I wanted immediacy but I didn't want people to realize that my remediation was transparent. Hence, the cake.
Baking the cake was a process in and of itself. I wanted the cake to be from scratch, so it required more work than usual. As I was bringing the ingredients together, the cocoa, the flour, the sugar, eggs, butter, shortening, I couldn't help but think of the parts of whole that come together through discourse community in order to create something greater than themselves. What's a spoonful of flour by itself? But immersed in this body, it became tasteful and engaging.
In a visual sense, decorating the cake was like decorating any other work of art. Certain parts of the cake begged for elaboration and design. I didn't want to be limited by writing in icing because there was too much to say, not enough space, and not enough talent on my part in regards to handwriting. Luckily, I had plenty of toothpicks to I decided to use them in order to expand on my concepts.
Although I managed to fit the 3 areas of the definition of discourse community that stuck out most to me, the reason I chose to do this on food as a medium is very important. Not only is food a functional medium, that is, is serves an important role in providing us with sustenance, it also is reflective of what I believe to be "truth". I can't help but think on my religion in which daily, along with millions of people around the world, I am called to mass that I may consume "The Word Made Flesh". There is a depth to this idea of ingesting something so holy and profound. They often say "you are what you eat". But we are told that by eating the Eucharist, the body of Christ is not becoming a part of us, but we are becoming a part of him. There's a reason they call it "communion". So as blasphemous as this may sound, I am truly enamored by that suggestion that eating the word, I am not so much letting "discourse community" become a part of me, but I am becoming part of the "discourse community". Food brings people together. Check the flyers for any organization on campus. Many discourse communities have "free snacks" at their meetings or go to dinner together. Food is a medium that rarely disappoints (unless you're counting calories).
Tying all this into my theory of composition, of revealing ultimate truth, I believe that the medium plays an important role in how we receive information. With any medium, whether it be digital, print, or edible, I think our senses play an important role in judgment. Our eyes need to see something attractive, we need to hear something compelling. Our mouths need to water. Composition must appeal to our ways of perceiving. We only have 5 senses, but there are a million ways in order to let an idea sink inside of us. When we compose, our truth needs to be something that moves someone, that overpowers their senses in way they haven't experienced. Only by overloading and crashing their system can we break down the walls they've built to protect their preconceptions and allow them the opportunity to reevaluate their interpretations. The ultimate truth is going to be deeply embedded so in order to reach it, you have to go as far into the core as you possibly can, and our compositions are the way by which we accomplish this.
For the remediation project I chose to write a short story. This idea was a little different than what I had originally planned on doing, however when the first plan doesn’t work you have to have a second one. Originally I had planned on doing a scrapbook. I wanted to show the process of life using the key term. I was going to do a biography of Janet Emig which was one of the scholars I had discussed in my newsletter. Once I began the research I started looking for photos and biographical informational information on Emig. Sadly, there were no images to be found and little information about her life. Without pictures, making a scrapbook would have been useless, so I thought again and decided to change my medium.
ReplyDeleteI decided to change my medium to a short story. I liked this idea because it allowed me to touch on the writing process from the newsletter in describing how someone used it. When writing my story I had the mindset of a mother figure or such telling a story to a child. As I wrote the story I thought about the details for the story and the character and how they would flow. Since my research showed that the writing process was primarily used to teach younger students how to organize and publish their ideas, I decided to use a young boy in my story. After I had chosen my character I had to come up with the base of the story. Since writing is the process of communicating ones ideas I chose to make this boy special in comparison to his friends because of his thirst for knowledge. Because the boy had so much knowledge, he needed an outlet which was writing.
The boy went through the typical struggles younger people have when learning to compose. This was intended to show why the writing process is used, and why Janet Emig found it so crucial to teach young students how to process and communicate their information clearly. As I did my research the boy did too, and he learned about Janet Emig and the writing process. Once he knew the steps he wrote his own paper and in the end he was happy to share his ideas with an audience and lived happily ever after.
I liked both the newsletter and remediation projects equally. With the newsletter project I learned how to write in a new way and how to use special details and formatting to create a newsletter. With the remediation project I was able to be creative and use which ever medium I wanted. I liked the freedom, and with it I was able to do something I really enjoy which is writing stories. The newsletter project contained all of the research I had done and was factual and informative of my key word “process”. With the remediation I used the research I used in the newsletter and kept the theme of the writing process. The difference in this project was that I was able to use a fictional short story to show how and why the writing process is used (the process of the writing process).
If I had to do either project again it would be the remediation project. I believe this project was better because it provides more freedom to choose your medium and how to work with it. A lot of the time it is easier to people tell you what to do, but using your own ideas sparks creativity and the possibilities are endless.
All of this ties into my theory of composing because I am more of a creative writer than a educator. I don’t mind doing research and reporting what I have learned, however to me writing whatever I feel like and being creative is much more fun.
For the past few weeks I’ve been spending a good deal of time working on projects focusing on the word “revision.” However, creating my newsletter and my collage were extremely different being that they were composed in different mediums. With my newsletter, I was more focused on the actual writing and format of the newsletter because it was a text; whereas with my collage I was more focused on the creative aspects because it is an art form. In that way, the switch in medium was challenging in trying to transfer my concrete ideas to a more abstract One thing that holds true to both is that they had to be aesthetically pleasing, so I focused on stylistic components of each equally as well- and that included a lot of planning and brainstorming from the beginning.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first started my newsletter, I did not have a concrete knowledge of my word, so I focused on research and then translating what I learned into a comprehensive summary that was engaging for eighteen year olds—everything had to be obvious and eye-catching. However, with my remediation I was allowed a little more room for interpretation with my work because the audience is intellectuals and professors. To me, this means I’m allowed to create an art form that both provokes thought and requires engaging thought to comprehend fully. Therefore, my structure was a little more complex for the remediation and not as straightforward. It requires thought to interpret; yet, it holds true to the message of my original newsletter.
The basis of my remediation was strongly tied to the definition of my keyword: revision is the thoughtful modification of writing with attention to both structure and content, this being done through meaning and surface changes. Without the two, revision is not complete. Right away I thought of describing a balance that exists between the two, my goal was to describe the way each depends on the other. The only way I could think to describe the relationship between the two types of revision in balance was through an obvious sign, the yin and yang. The sign traditionally holds that one side complements the other. It was challenging to incorporate the sign while trying to get the message across, so I finally decided on putting descriptive pictures of each type of revision on one side or the other. To make the work further scream revision, I added a border of newspaper with red revision marks, as well as eyes for the dots on each half. The eyes represent looking over a work or literally re-“vision.” If there was any further confusion, I put the word revision as well as each type of revision on their corresponding sides.
I can confidently say that my work is a remediation because it is a change in medium. After all, Bolter and Grusin described remediation as “the representation of one medium in another.” It was not simply a change in genre, but a remediation from a text in the form of a newsletter to art in the form of a collage. The two are completely different mediums. There are instances of words on the actual art form, yet they are not the central focus and do not function like that of a text. There is no syntax, for example, only single words that provoke images. Also, the collage relies more on the physical structure and images in general rather than words.
Overall, this process has really solidified my theory of composing. There are not many differences in the way I approached the works, even though the medium was completely different. For both, I first brainstormed, gathering my ideas into a concrete idea. Next, I worked on the actual composition whether that was writing my first draft for the newsletter, or painting and gluing images onto my wooden revision yin and yang. After several drafts, I revised my work. After learning about my word, revision, it actually helped me revise my own work—especially on the newsletter that was based heavily in text. Last, I’ve learned that reflecting is a valuable concluding step in my compositions. I learn a lot from recording my thoughts and processes, and take with me what I have learned for the next time. In this case, I learned that attention to audience is everything, and that attention to detail in styling makes the piece. In the future, I will stick to the process of composition I’ve made for myself through these projects.
ReplyDeleteThis remediation I found far easier than the newsletter. This perhaps is because we could choose our medium and we already had such a great understanding of our key word. The newsletter took me a great deal of time to try and figure out what exactly I wanted to say, while with the remediation I knew exactly what I wanted to do.
ReplyDeleteThe medium I chose was photography then into a Youtube video. Because my word was style this may have seemed like the obvious safe choice, but it went with my newsletter perfectly. In my newsletter I compared rhetoric and composing style with the clothing that one wears. This remediation of that message was the obvious choice and something that I am passionate about. I love photography and asked two rather stylish girls in my sorority to model for me. They were so willing and excited about it; it made it like a real photo shoot. After the shoot, the three of us went through the many photos (249 to be exact) and chose the ones we felt exemplified their personal style. A person’s style, whether it is rhetorical or clothing, becomes a part of their identity. The expression shows people who you are and is an outlet for your personal expression.
With the remediation, I went more with my gut instinct than anything else. When the assignment was given out in class it is what I knew I was going to do. I did the photo shoot, made the slideshow and put music to it. I added a few quotes throughout the slideshow, tying my key word into the photos. I added the music to create an overall mood while viewing the slideshow and I think it really adds a lot.
My idea of composing works with this because I usually do not outline what I do, I simply go with my gut. I know that some people believe that a full outline of composing is necessary in order to have a cohesive final product. I believe, however, that if you simply have a general idea as to where you want it to go, you can let the writing and your creativity do its thing. With the photos for example, I knew that I wanted pictures showing style, but I allowed the girls to bring their own clothes and did not plan out any of the shots. We worked with one another trying out different settings and backgrounds to bring out the best product we could. The newsletter was much more in the lines as far as how much I could leave to creativity. The layout was free form but I needed much more research and for it to be less crazy.
I really enjoyed this remediation project and now I know how to make a Youtube video, both plusses in my book.
The processes I used to complete my newsletter and my remediation were quite different. My newsletter was geared to a much more specific audience, and the remediation was a little more flexible in what I wanted to create. The newsletter involved a lot of research and regurgitating what my sources said. My photo essay allowed me to say what I wanted to say about my key word. But I think the work I did on my newsletter pushed me to my idea for my photo essay. A part I really enjoyed in the newsletter was using something other than words to communicate a thought. This was not a medium I had ever worked through before. I have taken photography classes, but never really had a message in my images. This has helped me understand why I was not as good at photography as I had hoped to be. I came into WEPO as a writer, but now I am trying to find my identity as a composer. It is similar to muscle confusion. Rather than only using my creativity for writing, I have been able to access a different side of my creativity.
ReplyDeleteMy key word is “technology”. I decided to use a medium other than a digital medium because I felt that a digital medium would be redundant. A point my sources made while I was researching my newsletter was that technology is not taking over. Mediums are not being canceled out, but integrated into our lives. Print is still widely used, but you cannot be considered “literate” into today’s society without knowing how to use a computer and/or the Internet. I did not add captions to the images because I felt it defeated the purpose of the photo essay and the point I was trying to make through it. I wanted to use photos rather than just simply using words because I wanted to show what technology has been able to give us. It has given us so many more outlets of communication and creativity. I thought putting it into a book form would pay the respects we so owe to our favorite books. Technology often creates a lot of abstract situations. For example, Facebook can be impersonal and create the stance of a social life, but its nothing that can be touched or measured. This is a problem that a lot of people have with the integration of technology, that it is not a substitute for human interaction. I wanted something tangible; something that would be an experience for those who do not appreciate technology the way some of the newer generations do.
The process for remediating my newsletter was a difficult one. I chose to remediate the word rhetorical situation from print to song because of how abstract rhetorical situation is. I couldn’t think of any images or physical representations of the term, so I thought it would be best to write a song about it and then record it. One of the hardest parts was writing the song itself. I wanted it to rhyme so I had to figure out my end words and what would go well with what. I learned that it’s very hard to write a song that sounds good! I tried to get across the idea of rhetorical situation as best as I could while also trying to rhyme. It was frustrating. Putting it all together, making a beat on Garage Band and then recording my voice was a process. I learned a lot from my friend about how to create beats and put together instrument sounds. That part was fun. But then recording my voice, I realized I’m a horrible singer. It was funny to realize and a lot of fun to make, but I never thought about how my voice would come across on a recorder. So I added echo’s to my voice and edited some of the instruments and I was done!
ReplyDeleteI think my song is a more fun way to learn about rhetorical situation, but if a person really wanted to educate themselves on rhetorical situation my newsletter probably would be better. However, I think composing should be something that contains elements of your own style and if music is something you feel really connected to, I think making a song is perfect. Writing the song itself was a challenge of composing that I’d never experienced before. All mediums connect in some way when it comes to composing and I think this project was a perfect example of this.
The process of creating this remediation was definitely a lot different than creating the newsletter was. The newsletter was a more academic process that required a decent amount of legwork as far as doing research and looking into the different ways that Rhetorical Knowledge has been defined. While it had a creative aspect, the newsletter format isn’t the most open-ended genre to compose in. This remediation process was different, simultaneously more intriguing and challenging without a prescribed genre like a newsletter to guide the process.
ReplyDeleteIt was a more open-ended process that required more thought not just about content, but genre. It required more broad thinking about composition because not only did I need to think about who my intended audience was, but I had to decide what kind of approach would be best to take to reach them. Different media have different affordances and limitations, so I had to consider what tools I wanted to have available to me.
I ultimately decided to create a prezi for a few different reasons. I wanted to be able to take advantage of the multimedia capabilities of digital technology, and I knew prezi could do that. I thought about a more abstract medium like a video or possibly some type of artistic project, but my term being rhetorical knowledge pushed me away from that. The term has been complex to define and would be difficult to fit all of these various definitions into one seamless project. I didn’t think I could make something abstract that would appropriately represent the depth of rhetorical knowledge, so I thought prezi’s combination of multimedia capabilities and the ability to include a lot of information would be the best route.
I would defend this choice for a few reasons as well. One is that I think that using a few different forms of information, like text, images, and videos, is a good way to present information. It can be really helpful to have additional material like an image or video reinforcing the meaning of the text. Also, as our intended audience was fellow scholars in Rhetoric, I didn’t want to go with an approach that was too light on concrete information. I felt that addressing scholars called for a remediation that had more versatility than the newsletter, but still required a good amount of factual information. While creativity isn’t unscholarly, I felt that a more straight forward approach would be more appropriate to address scholars about rhetorical knowledge.
As far as the way that my theory of composing connects to this process, I think it’s progressed as the process of this remediation has progressed. As I mentioned in our reflection on the first half of the term, my theory of composing at first was focused on writing primarily, and doing so with audience and context in mind and then writing as clearly and vividly as possible, but then had expanded to include more appreciation of diversity in composing. This project helped me truly experience that side of my theory of composing, because I was trying to apply the same ideas about good composition that I had laid out with writing in mind to this digital project, where I had a greater range of possibilities. I still stand by my theory though, because I think that good composition follows the same principles regardless of medium, and it’s just a matter of tailoring the approach to the affordances of the genre and media you’re working with. It was good to get a chance to first-hand experience that process though, and while it wasn’t easy Im glad to be finished with it and I feel that it did help me as a composer.
Both of these projects helped me understand my key word better, but I believe I learned more from thee remediation project. I felt with the newsletter that I wasn’t able to learn my key word as in depth as I needed to because I had to dumb down so much of what I was reading so it was suitable for an incoming college freshman with no prior exposure to understand. Because the audience for the remediation was scholars in the field, I was able to better describe my key term and go into much greater detail about the history and controversy surrounding the study of the composing process.
ReplyDeleteWith this project I also enjoyed working with Prezi more than I did trying to build a newsletter in word. Prezi was way more interactive and I felt I was able to better customize my project than I was able to using word to make the newsletter. Another thing I liked about Prezi was that it was similar to a traditional presentation, but it was able to move fluidly throughout the board. It was similar to writing on a white board and being able to move all over the board and not have to worry about slide transitions like in a traditional presentation.
It has also helped alter my theory of composition for the better. Now that I actually better understand the process model and all of the separate theories within it, I now better understand who I am as a writer. Now I can pick and choose different features of the different theories to help improve my creative process.
My composing process for the remediation was a lot simpler than my process for the newsletter. The main difference I found was that with my remediation (Creating an animated gif image) was that there was less concentration on research in my remediation. The creation of my gif was a more creative centered process. With this I really had to concentrate more on what images I wanted to use, how I was going to use my Paint Net program to manipulate the images and how I was going to be able to keep the overall image from becoming distorted and unable for the person perceiving the image’s meaning which was of course, my key word: Rhetorical Audience. The Newsletter’s process was not only a more lengthy process but it was a more complicated/heavier relaying of information than the remediation.
ReplyDeleteThe choice of using a digital image/art medium was actually a very natural one for me. I make similar projects all the time with the same program so I thought it would be a good thing to use a familiar medium for this project. This, I must admit, made the creation of this remediation a lot more fun for me in the process. I believe my choices for this remediation were sound ones in that the animation it not only makes you look at all aspects of the image but it makes you think about what could the image possibly mean. The animation aspect, I think adds a little kick to the whole piece. It catches you attention.
My theory of composing, that we recreate and share information is tied into this through the fact that the image shows that we can compose not only through presentation of words and basic programs but also through images created. With this animation image I used borrowed images and my own images, the effects allowed to me in the program helped me to create something that conveys a message in the best way I could.
Please excuse any typos or spelling mistakes, I am writing this from my blackberry in the car to Miami :)
ReplyDeleteRemediating words into a digital medium is easy, but when we were assigned this project, I spent days trying to figure out a way to remediate the word "assessment" into a digital form. I finally came to the conclusion that I was going to have to use my brain and think of something more creative. After meeting with our peers and discussing our progress, it was brought to my attention that assessment is a test, so what's a physical form of assessment...a test booklet. Immediately I thought of the unused GRE test book that sat idly on my desk at home. - quickly dismissed that idea when I realized 2 things; 1) its a rather thick booklet that I would not be able to thoroughly fill. 2) it was expensive, and although I have yet to begin studying for that dreaded exam...I wasn't going to give it to Kara forever! That's when it hit me...what does every FSU student, especially English majors use at least once a semester? Blue books! So I went to Bills, pretended to be a freshman so I didn't have to count out a measly 30 cents and proceeded to stare at the empty test booklet for several days. I wasn't sure what to do next with it. Finally I decided to use it to display the 3 waves of assessment. Starting with multiple choice and reading comprehension questions, moving on the holistically scored essay and then finally the portfolio. I printed out examples and used my crayons and markers to put together a "history of assessment book". Although it may look a little like a kindergardener made it...I think it correctly portrays the important points of assessment and also is a creative remediation of my newsletter.
Initially, the beginning details of coming up with a way to accurately portray the definition and concepts associated with the word arrangement without using the print medium, was difficult. However, then I looked deeper into the process of remediation and saw that arrangement could be applied relatively anywhere. So I began to come up with this obnoxiously large and extravagant project, requiring the downloading and converting videos, I spent about 3 hours trying to convert all of the videos into the format that was shown on some YouTube tutorials and had no luck. I could definitely tell that the process for coming up with this remediation would be more difficult than I assumed it would be, especially in comparison to the newsletter. My goal was to create a video mash up, somewhat similar to what I had seen in clubs (don’t laugh) or on MTV based off of the Aristotle’s points for effective dispositio, which is the Latin word for arrangement. So I decided the most rational method to go would be video and musical arrangement. I selected a song that I know and love very well, Landslide by Toby Mac, which was released in 1975 and has been duplicated many times. The version used for my project however was arranged and composed by “The Backbeats” a group featured on the NBC Reality Acapella Singing Competition, “The Sing Off”. The group has been praised for their arrangement of a classic song, and to this day, 3 months after its premiere, they are still receiving royalties. So I assumed this song would be perfect to highlight the aim of my arrangement. Because of my debacle with the video, I decided that an arrangement of pictures and inspirational stories that showed the aim of my arrangement would be better suited. The choice for creating a video was better suited for my ideas and this project because I could incorporate both sound and visual components without interruption or the audience’s needs to “click”. In reality, I would think that any remediation is better suited to me in movie form because if you look at the history of remediation, for example a few that we’ve talked about in class time- Harry Potter and Twilight, both of which were print media transformed into movie. I would say that for the most part these were accurate and great remediation examples; I enjoyed them, and again would choose a movie in further remediation projects.
ReplyDeleteRemediation…wow, I went a completely different way to define my keyword this time. I wanted to tell a story and allow my key word to have substance while being heard. I made a mix of songs that all had a common goal, that goal being the support of helping our community working toward the raising of our kids within the community. I feel as if this was a way for me to portray my views on my community, coming from where I come from. I feel as if we as people get so caught up within ourselves that we tend to forget about the people who helped us get to the place where we are today. For, I know that if it was not for my neighbors who where constantly outside throughout the day and of all the times of the night just to make sure that me and my peers were doing the right thing and abiding by the rules in which the community once had. The thing that is missing today is the presence of a family within the community. When I say a “family” I mean the feeling of the community operating together as a FAMILY. Watching out for those who are in the same area as themselves and is not out to get them or bring them lower than what they are/have been before. My word collaboration is a teaching tool within the rhetoric and composition world. I say this for it helps develop the audience awareness on a certain issue; it is used to unify different composers of different backgrounds, beliefs, and ethics to come together and work together for a common goal, whether good or bad. The reason I made the decision of using different songs and collaborate them into one, is for the simply reason that these different artists have different views on life, but they have most importantly a common goal in the songs that I used. They want their audiences to become more aware of the communities that they live in. They want them to become the ones who take things in their own hands and help in the progression of their very own community. My stlye of composing can be termed “storyteller”, for I want to take my audience on an adventure and have them think about their actions or just simply learn and/or laugh at mine. I enjoy taking readers to a different place, allowing them to have a tour of what is in the mind of me. I have and always will tell stories no matter the paper or project a story will be told.
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